John Waterhouse took a scene from Homer’s The Odyessy, The Siren Song, and depicted Odyessus and his crew surrounded by Sirens. The Waterhouse painting shows the boat going through a rock channel with the Sirens flocking around the boat instead of the Sirens being on the island. In The Odyssey, “Then down they sat, and, rowing, threshed the brine,” and, “which with their polished blades whitened the Deep,” but in the painting the crew is barely making a billow. Although in The Odyessy only wax is used for the crew’s ears, the painting illustrates cloths being used as well. As well as Waterhouse’s painting, there is a much older version of “The Sirens Song” on the Attic Vase. The Attic Vase is a realic from 200 years after The Odyessy
